If you were a hedge fund ? What would u do ?, page-61

15 Ways to Spot Stock Discussion Board Rampers


The Internet has given investors many excellent sources for doing due diligence on the thousands of stocks available for purchase. But for many investors, finding trustworthy sources of information about a particular company can be challenging.

One source that many investors look to for reliable information on a company is the various stock discussion boards and forums. While some of these research sources can be helpful, many of these discussion boards and forums have dangerous elements to them.

Almost all stock forums contain slithery characters that have insidious hidden motives when posting their comments. Some of these forum posters are so clever at what they do, even the most sophisticated investor can make a bad buy or sell decision based on the poster’s deceiving posts on the forums. Recall that even the CEO of Whole Foods was caught posting in an insidious fashion on a company's stock forum.

One slimy character in particular to be vigilant of is the omnipresent stock ramper. S/he can be found on almost every discussion board / forum and too many times investors can make bad buy decisions by following the ramper’s misguided advice.
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https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/...5-ways-to-spot-stock-discussion-board-rampers

@Successwillcome - It is not at all difficult to substantiate things.

Many here have provided in-depth analysis of the company's financial position based on the company's own published financials. They have provided analysis drawn from the company's published announcements. They have raised many legitimate questions - most of which remain unanswered.

In contrast - you seem to go to extraordinary lengths to use questionable sources to justify your position.


As a very simple example - given that BOTH pieces of information are freely available - which in your opinion is the best figure to use to determine the likely future margin for a business:
a) The historical margin for that business drawn from their published, audited accounts over several operating periods, or,
b) The average margin from a survey of vaguely similar businesses operating in a different geographical location and tax regimes, and including vastly different types and sizes of businesses

Because your answer would seem to be... "Whichever answer allows me to paint the rosiest possible picture".

Which I put to you is a fair distance removed from "Whichever gives the most likely accurate answer".

If the Watchstone lawsuit was planned "well before the new lenders came in", then clearly the banks didn't find the likely outcome of said lawsuit to be very favourable, otherwise it's hard to reconcile this with them selling their debt for 25c in the dollar.

Why do you think they sold the debt for pennies - if all they had to do is capitalise some interest, maybe provide some short-term finance, and sit back and wait 6, 12, 18 months??